LONDON, England - Gary Cahill says that Chelsea can see “the light at the end of the tunnel” as they close in on regaining the Premier League title.
Chelsea are 10 points clear at the top of the table with just 13 games left to go. They drew 1-1 at Burnley on Sunday, which Cahill said could be a “wake-up call” to his team-mates, to make sure they hold their nerve over the final straight.
Chelsea’s next three Premier League games, against Swansea City, West Ham United and Watford, should be less hard than the games they have just come through and it is now just about application for Antonio Conte’s runaway league leaders.
“It is time to press on, and it is a time where the motivation to finish the job should be there for everyone,” Cahill said on Sunday afternoon. “There is light at the end of the tunnel now. It is important we keep working and keep focused, as we have been for 95 per cent of the season.”
Most of this Chelsea team won the title under Jose Mourinho in 2014-15 and Cahill told his team-mates to keep working as they chase down a title that will surely be theirs.
“We know that every game that goes by, you get closer and closer,” Cahill said. “That should give us more determination to work so hard in training, to work so hard in games and achieve what we want to achieve. It's there for us if we want it, and we all want it.”
In 2013-14 Chelsea were top in the spring but were also in the Champions League semi-finals and ended up winning neither. This season Chelsea are not in Europe and Cahill wants maximum focus over the final straight.
“It's not hard if you want to achieve what we want to achieve,” he said. “We've done so much hard work this season to put ourselves in this position. We can almost see the finishing line now. We've got 13 games now and it's important that we tick the games off with the right results. We should be even more focused because they games are getting closer and closer, and be even more determined.”
Chelsea are not playing quite as well as they did on their great 13-game winning streak, but Cahill said that the 1-1 draw at Burnley could remind his team-mates to not lose their focus. “We could play a lot better than on Sunday,” he said. “But the most important thing is that we stay focused. Maybe that was a little wake-up for us where we realise it's going to be tough to cross the line and there's plenty more football to be played. We just have to keep working, keep focused and believe in what we've been doing all season."